Sean Hodgson: 'I had years in hell - I wondered if I would ever get out’

Finally freed after spending 27 years wrongfully imprisoned for a violent crime

Some people, after decades in jail for crimes they didn't commit, celebrate their release with a clenched fist, bared teeth and a well-earned jig before the waiting media. But not Sean Hodgson.

Set free after 27 years last week, having finally been proved innocent of rape and murder, Hodgson shuffled towards the waiting cameras and said very little. He seemed to need holding up by his younger brother. He looked depleted, a mere fraction of a person. And he looks much the same when I meet him with his lawyers a few days later, at the inexpensive west London hotel where he's holed up away from (other) journalists.

Hodgson, 57, stares blankly over the top of his unmodish aviator glasses. His jeans, T-shirt and the leather jacket he wore when he was arrested all those years ago drape loosely over his skinny frame. He has sunken cheeks, sloping shoulders and